In the air-conditioning and refrigeration industry, there is a need for machines that recover, clean and recharge refrigerants from old systems or systems that have malfunctioned. At the same time, the industry also requires air-conditioning and refrigeration system cleaning equipment for systems that are being retrofitted and or have malfunctioned due to internal contamination. At present, such equipment exists separately making it necessary for a technician to set up and use one machine for one process and then separately connect and use a second machine to run the second process. For example, where solvent flushing is desired, three different connections are required, e.g., first the refrigerant recovery and reclamation machine is set up and operated, then the refrigerant recovery reclamation machine is disconnected and a solvent flushing machine connected and operated, and finally, the flushing machine is disconnected and then the refrigerant recovery reclamation machine is reconnected to recharge the system with refrigerant.
The refrigerant recovery, reclamation and recharging device evacuates the refrigerant from the refrigeration system and can clean or purify the evacuated refrigerant before storing the cleaned refrigerant for reuse. Such machines can also recharge a refrigeration system with cleaned refrigerant removed from the system and add new refrigerant as necessary to make up for any lost refrigerant. Examples of such devices are known in the art and are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,172,562, and 6,134,899 and 6,247,325, which patents are hereby incorporated by reference herein. Some of these devices can also flush the refrigerant system with the refrigerant, but are not capable of flushing with solvent.
Separate solvent flushing devices are also known in the art. Such devices are capable of flushing solvent through components of the refrigeration system to remove oils, particulates and other contamination that may have a detrimental effect on the refrigeration system. This cleaning is particularly desirable after a system failure such as a catastrophic compressor failure. Such systems can purify and clean the used solvent so that the solvent can be reused. An example of such a device is illustrated in US patent publication 20040231702 which document is hereby incorporated by reference herein.
The ability to perform maintenance on a refrigeration system can be improved by providing a single device or apparatus that can recover, reclaim and recharge refrigerant as well as solvent flush the system. This would avoid the need to connect two different machines and would result in a shorter cycle time for the technician in utilizing the equipment.